Rarely does dark doubt sound quite so inviting.

Unexpectedly, though, some of the record's best moments come when Byrne strips away the rhythmic accessories and relies on basic orchestral backing... And yet, the majority of the album still relies on primal, swinging grooves.

This is a band that absolutely revels in the possibilities suggested by its obsidian thrills, no matter the potential changes in the audience’s size and scope. Down Below is about death and hell, sure, but it’s proudly, defiantly not meant for an underground anymore.

Water Made Us is dextrous and steady. It conjures a profound sweetness from ordinary musings and takes the guile out of relationships.

Rae is at her most delightful balancing camp and sincerity on starry-eyed numbers in which all the world’s a stage.

Though thoroughly enjoyable, the album isn't always riveting, either, and occasionally the attention does stray.

As ever, Ragon's lyrics are highly evocative if not outright provocative.

Now all parts of Shepherd are on display, the scientist-DJ-producer-jazz-musician who can have his cake and eat it, too.

In its minimalist opacity and Vantablack depths, it’s the polar opposite of Goblin’s playfully neon-hued approach, and it’s in going to that extreme that Yorke has made Suspiria his own.

The particulars of the feelings evoked here will vary from one set of ears to another, but above all, Knoxville offers an opportunity to lose yourself in a rush of highly detailed and overpowering sound. And the spaces it builds come across as beautiful and celebratory, no matter how crazy things get.

As with Human Performance, the broad strokes of Wide Awake! are familiar but the details are often excitingly out of place.

The warmth of Infinite Moment radiates from its symbiotic growth of melancholy and hope. Willner doesn’t privilege one over the other, but allows them to knit together, watching from a distance to see the shapes they might take.

Even while making a turn towards formalism, Golden Retriever remain as inventive as ever. Rotations is also richly emotional.

Sunn O))) is a behemoth, a leviathan, a statement of purpose worthy of the late-career self-titling gamble. Despite that, maybe because of it, I can’t imagine wanting to listen to it more than once every few years.

They’re effortlessly in sync, belying their limited experience collaborating with each other.

Isn’t It Now? also retains the band’s knack for defamiliarizing their influences, in the same way that Sung Tongs could make you feel like you were hearing a guy strumming an acoustic guitar for the first time in your life.

With the help of Nathan Jenkins, aka producer Bullion, Westerman achieves a synthesis of these previous experiments, fusing together whimsical curiosity and technical proficiency. Over a backdrop made of the sounds of the past, his lucid yet uncomplicated lyrics interrogate the uncertainty of the present.

What’s unique to Exile is the unreal world of the Outer Ring, which is as well developed in the music as it is in the lyrics and videos.

Reality Testing stands as one of the year's best, most luxuriant, and accomplished electronic albums, more proof that when it comes to forging a new future out of what’s already taken place, Cutler remains at the top of his game.

LC! have never sounded so muscular or crafted melodies as instantly memorable.

Lala Belu rings out with the resilience of a onetime dreamer who’s absorbed disappointment and settled for something close to optimism.

Thorn refuses to see an ending as the end on Record, and the results are wickedly funny and relevant to listeners of all ages.

Unlike the spiteful divinity that stalks these songs, Hayter’s music is full of reverence and empathy for our most challenging task: to be human.

He manages to convey the same exuberance and spirit in his own music that he hears in his favorite old tunes.

Each song on Glasshouse has its own distinct aesthetic; unlike her previous albums, 2012’s Devotion and 2014’s Tough Love, there are no songs here that could be confused for each other, none that seem an afterthought carved from the greater mood of the album.

Rise’s “You Know It Ain’t” expands the spoken-word interludes of Black Is into a full song. While these moments can feel heavy-handed at other times, here the humor is welcome and specific.

It's probably his most immersive single release--or album, or mixtape, or emanation, or whatever--in a year and a half, better than both Based God Velli and I'm Gay.

Smart but never intellectual, given more to the words we use over the words we know, Newman peppers these stories with little references to the Great Migration, climate change (the swells on Willie’s beach keep getting bigger), global politics, and American myth.